


Deafer Than Def Jam

by kenwaylights



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American Sign Language, Deaf Character, Deaf Reader, Deaf Reader Insert, F/M, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:26:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenwaylights/pseuds/kenwaylights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Deaf woman comes into the VA seeking assistance for her brother. She's sent to Sam and a lot of awkwardness and bad signing ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deafer Than Def Jam

**Author's Note:**

> I'm actually Deaf, so Deaf!Reader inserts are one of my favourites. And yet they are so few and far in between...  
> Title derives from Sean Forbes' "I'm Deaf."

Strolling through the VA on his way to work, Sam Wilson was whistling to himself and had a spring in his step. He woke up in a crazy good mood today, he didn’t know why but he didn’t care enough to question it. Hell, if the universe wanted him happy, it must’ve been for a good reason.

He rounded a corner and found his coworker, Jessica, waiting for him by his cubicle. “Sam, hang on a sec,” she said quickly.

“Hey, Jess, what’s up?”

“We’ve got a new vet coming in today and she needs some accommodations.”

“Oh?” His brows furrowed and he licked his lips, listening intently.

“You don’t know any ASL, do you?”

“Uh… I can ask for the toilet, do the alphabet, ask a handful of basic questions and curse someone out.”

Jess sighed in annoyance. “Then I’ll have to call in an interpreter. If the interpreter is late, you can probably use notepads. Just keep her busy till the interpreter gets here.”

“O…kay…?”

Sure enough, the veteran got there before the interpreter did. Sam waved and extended his hand for her to shake it. “MY NAME S-A-M,” he signed slowly.

She didn’t seem to mind his lack of speed. She smiled kindly despite the weariness in her eyes and replied (a bit more quickly but still slow enough for him to see), “HI. MY NAME _____.”

Sam struggled to think of the signs he needed, but eventually ended up mumbling “fuck it” and grabbing an index card and a pen. “An interpreter will be joining us shortly,” he wrote, showing her the card. She nodded and sat down in one of the chairs facing Sam’s desk.

There was a slightly awkward silence in which the pair of them tried to look anywhere but at each other. Then _____ thought of something and cautiously knocked on Sam’s desk. She struggled for a minute, opening and closing her mouth, then said, “I can kind of read lips if that helps. Lip-reading is very hard as only a percent of the English language can be lip-read, but I can do my best.”

Sam took a second to decode the accent (as he had never heard a deaf or hard of hearing accent before) before quickly shaking his head and writing, “I wouldn’t ask you to do something that’s difficult for you. That would be plain rude of me.”

_____ read this and laughed. Without thinking, she signed, “THANK-YOU.”

He understood the thank-you sign but wasn’t sure which of the variations of “you’re welcome” he should use, so he stuck to a lame thumbs-up and a smile. “YOU DEAF ALWAYS?”

She nodded, stating that she was born deaf and raised Deaf, with a capital D.

“NO IMPLANT?” he asked.

_____ seemed to take offence to this. She lifted an eyebrow and leaned back in her seat a bit before brusquely answering, “NO.”

 _Ah, shit, I fucked up._ (Yes, Sam, you did. That was rude.) “SORRY.”

She unleashed a flurry of signs and he only knew a handful of them: “ASSHOLE,” “DEAF,” “IMPLANT” and “IDIOT.” From this, he assumed that she had probably called him an idiotic asshole for asking about a cochlear implant. And, as any d/Deaf person could tell you, that was an assholish move. (What she actually said could be basically translated to “what kind of ignorant asshole asks deaf people if they have implants? Do you know how rude that is, you idiot?”)

“I SORRY.”

_____ drew a deep breath, closed her eyes a minute and responded, “FINE.”

It was at that moment that the interpreter finally arrived. She greeted both of them and told _____ that she’d be her interpreter, yadda yadda yadda, the usual shebang to which she had grown accustomed.

As it turned out, _____ was _not_ a vet. Her (hearing/CODA) brother, however, was, and she wanted to get information on the group therapy setup before mentioning it to her stubborn little brother. “OK, I UNDERSTAND,” Sam told her. The interpreter huffed. _____ snorted at how very basic his signing skill was. She had seen worse, of course, and she wasn’t making fun of him. In this particular case, she thought it was kind of cute how hard he was trying. (She wasn’t about to let him off easy for the implant comment, however.)

Everything was taken care of relatively swiftly after that. As she stood to go, Sam caught her attention and pitifully signed, “YOU WANT EAT?” _Shit, that didn’t work out right._

_____ took a second to figure out what exactly he was asking. “DATE YOU ASK?”

Sam tilted his head at the unfamiliar ASL vocabulary.

“DATE. D-A-T-E. DATE.”

He blushed a little, but nodded.

She smirked, bending down and writing her mobile number on a fresh index card. “We’ll go over Deaf/hearing etiquette immediately,” she said orally before leaving.

_Hell yeah._


End file.
